to someone who grew up on awful bootleg LP's this isn't as bad as some make it out to be...although wasn't at the Bowl that night, I was in Elysian Park the following day for the freebie that Graham put on to make up for the harassment of the crowd by the Bowl Staff who had no idea what they were dealing with...the following Monday was the start of my Senior year in High School...

This is just the type of AUD that gets me excited to listen to the Dead again. The official releases are so dull, it's hard to understand why they release them. The AUD recordings capture what it felt like to be at the show, and the guitar is always so much sweeter. It's funny to hear so much organ, that real 1960s vibe for sure. Great energy in this recording, though it has its flaws.

Terrible recording. Some of it is OK sounding.

It's 1967 people

What a time machine might do for this recording. A blast from the past,(assuredly)a performance of epic proportions(no doubt); but man-what was the guy recording this doing exactly, sitting on the microphone? I love the fact that this recording survived the cross generational journey in one piece, because if you've been combing the archives with a fine tooth comb like I have, you'll as likely have noticed too great gaps that didn't turn up any recordings- understandably so. So, with all due respect sir- thanks for the wonderful piece of footage from a stellar concert, I hoped all the muffle, dropout, hiss-hush was due to you dance vigorously and practically falling down with glee just being there. Thanks again.

If this recording were any hotter it'd torch your ass.
In fact, the version of "Beat It On Down The Line" has already torched my ass.
Although an audio recording, I still must say it's better than The Betty Hutton Show, since it's VERY NICE.

Yeah...I remember that night. I was there with my kind of lame college girlfriend to see Jefferson Airplane. I was hoping they'd play "Comin' back to me" and "Today" and Andrea would be all romantic and we would end the evening making love in the back seat of my car. NOT!
Big Brother was supposed to open but, fresh from their groundbreaking show at Monterey, they had other committments. So here comes the Grateful Dead! Holy Smoke! What was that? The set list shows them opening with Viola Lee Blues but I don't remember it that way. I seem to recall they played a bunch of short snappy songs including "Schoolgirl" and ended with Viola Lee Blues. As they played the coda, the words "Grateful Dead" magically appeared on the Hollywood Bowl's band shell. In purple letters! I got goosebumps even back then. At one point during the set, Wier asked the crowd in general "Why aren't there any people dancing? Why are y'all sitting down?" This provoked a mad dash for the stage where the Bowl officials had covered the reflective pond with plywood. This flimsy plywood covering was soon filled with joyous Deadheads who ignored pleas from the announcer to vacate the area. The Dead seemed to feed off the energy of the crowd...Ha Ha! I wonder how that happened? Anyway they shot everything they had and made a lot of new friends that night. Oh yeah...the Airplane did come on and played their usual show for '67 but I went home thinking "Who were those guys? Those guys were wild! What was their name again? Oh yeah...The Grateful Dead!"

There are some good performances here, probably an average show for the second half of 1967, but it's sometimes difficult to tell because of the poor audio quality. Jerry is in control on Morning Dew, and Cold Rain and Snow rocks. But why are the audience members talking through Alligator instead of listening? A psychedelic Caution->feedback can be heard through thumping of the mic.
The sound quality is poor even for this year. There are many shows from 1966 and 1967 here are Archive.org that have FAR better audio than this. People who say this recording has good audio for the period just haven't heard much here at Archive. For instance, check this out:
http://www.archive.org/details/gd67-08-05.sbd.hanno.16753.sbeok.shnf />The good news is that there are great early shows with good quality. The best way to get to them is this:
http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=collection%3AGratefulDead%20AND%20year%3A%221967%22

Even with it's sound flaws, It's history. They jammed no doubt it and they sounded solid in this performance. Can you imagine being at the Hollywood Bowl with that line up for this show. I wish I was old enough to go to that show. I was only 4years old at that time.

The occasional drop outs are a bummer but screw it: this is the shxt.
I never ever ever ever tire of Jerry and Pig going at it full hog. Can't. Get. Enough.
How many universes were created and destroyed between the vibrating air molecules in front of the Dead's speakers during the scores of renditions of Viola Lee they performed in 1967?
I don't know how to calculate the number, but I want to visit them all.

I have always been on the liberal side of grading shows, never nitpicking on this & that regarding sound quality. Often what's considered a pitiful Audience copy, I can get into.
That being said, the quality of 9-15-67 at the Hollywood Bowl is truly borderline horrible. Just because it's '67, that doesn't automatically make it an enjoyable listen. I had a difficult time enjoying this because of hiss and dropouts and what, at times, sounded like a bathroom renovation that the mics were patched into.
On a beautifully quiet and peaceful hike I took this show . . . but instead of really getting into the tunes, it merely became decent background music to deeper thoughts like -- what would life be like if the Earth was made of marshmallow? And terrorists, rather than kill people with explosives, what if they just made people listen to Clay Aiken?
It's heartbreaking enough to read over and over "None in Circulation" regarding '67 shows . . . rather than make the pain in my heart any better, this terrible copy of a show just seems to throw salt into the wound. What a shame.
4 stars for the music
1.5 to 2 stars for quality of recording

It was Bill Graham's first big splash with the LA media, I think. The "SF Scene" with the Airplane, Big Brother and the Dead on one bill, with a lightshow projected on the outdoors bandbox. But Graham left Janis in SF for some transgression and, at the concert, announced the Dead would do a longer set to compensate. I don't know if it really was longer, but when they were done, the Airplane's set afterward seemed kind of inadequate by comparison. My musical tastes may have been forever altered, but in a good way. My rating reflects this.

guess it was temporary, sbds are back too, but only in streaming, but their back.

"." Nonintuitive

Usually sound quality doesn't bother me at all. But there are just so many drop-outs during this show. Everytime that I really got into a jam all of a sudden there would be a drop out, which gets to be quite distracting.
Otherwise this show is pretty damn good.
If you can stand the drop outs and the ever present hiss and crowd noise, then this is a pretty good little show.

It's a nice '67 show, not a great mix but acceptable, sound Sixties-sh. From Alligator to the end just great psychedlic jammin. I like 67 in particular, and this is about middle of the pack or better, but well worth downloading, imo.

Agreed, sound could be a lot better, but for '67, actually pretty good. Crowd noise double-edged sword: lower overall quality, but really puts you there. But this is great shit. Too much. Too great. It's all sunny while i'm listenin' to Gator and writing this blurb. My praise goes out to all the kind folks who put up such precious recordings for us to appreciate.

Sound quality is pretty crude here, which is a common thread in live recordings from the 66-68 Dead era. The band, however, was in top form with organist/harmonica-man/singer Pigpen trading off solos, riffs, and lines with frontman Jerry Garcia, Phil Lesh thumping away on that fretless bass, and the rest of the band grooving along.
Good show, if you can find another one at better quality from this time, you might wanna do that.
Another good source is http://www.gdlive.com/